“… more backlinks you collect the high is the rank…”: I don’t’ really agree with this sentence.
It’s more important to receive many “qualifying” links.
When you do link popularity is always better to change anchor text by using synonyms.
I suggest you, but only for few times (NOT ALWAYS!) to insert anchor text between quotes: for example, is I want to push a page that is about search engine, the sentence will be “Search engine” for you! But the anchor text is only “search engine”.
Please attention: don’t use always this way …
To optimize the anchor text is very important not only to increase link popularity but also for internal website pages, for example to get site link.